> Surely whomever you direct the question at will laugh at you and no one would take you seriously. But, then, do you consider that the entity may actually lie

> Surely whomever you direct the question at will laugh at you and no one would take you seriously. But, then, do you consider that the entity may actually lie about it? It may be psychopathic enough to say, "I am not conscious, that's ridiculous", and yet be conscious. Another possibility is that it wouldn't understand words in the way we understand them. Asking a nation state "are you conscious?" may be like asking a child "do you have knee-jerk reflex?". How would you know without prior experience? However, asking in a different manner, say like in a referendum in Greece, you can get a very emphatic response which hints at consciousness at national level.